Cell-free synthesis for the clinic: How Invitris is building a phage printer

What if you could build biology in a tube, no cells required? Invitris is a Munich-based cell-free synthesis company starting with bacteriophages. Kilian Vogele, co-founder of Invitris, joins Jessica and Joe to explain how cell-free phage production works — and why they're building toward a "phage printer" that could sit in a hospital.

Topics covered:

• How cell-free phage production actually works

• Why removing bacteria removes a lot of contamination problems

• Phages as Lego sets — mix-and-match engineering

• Building a phage printer for hospitals

• Where AI-generated phages fit (and don't)

• What it takes to get cell-free phages into a clinical trial

Kilian Vogele is the co-founder of Invitris, a Munich-based cell-free synthesis company currently focused on bacteriophage production. Trained as a physicist at TU Munich, he co-founded Invitris out of a 2018 iGEM project and has been building toward decentralized, on-demand cell-free manufacturing — starting with phages.